Healer to the Rescue
by TweakerWolf
Summary: Melissa takes care of Corey after he comes in with the scorpion sting. Just a quick fic giving Mama McCall a chance to shine. We rarely see her in nurse mode and I think her work is important!
1. Mystery boy

A/N: This was originally requested and written when we first saw Corey in the hospital and his name hadn't even been said in the show. Also I had stopped watching the show at this point (it was too much drama for me, like to physically watch) so when I wrote it, I was pretty much writing in the dark XD so I know it isn't perfect... Also, I'm not a medical professional so it goes without saying that I'm sure a lot of this is incorrect...

This was originally posted on my other page as a piece in my drabbles collection. Since FF doesn't have an extensive tagging system, I never got around to posting the collection on here, it would've been impossible to categorize. Now, all this time later, I decided to just post some of my more favorite drabbles as their own separate fics here on FF.

Original prompt: Corey gets stung by a dangerous scorpion and there is nothing anyone can give him to help with the pain. Even Scott is unable to leech the pain… Melissa is on call and her heart breaks for the poor teen so she sits with him, comforting him until the pain finally dies down. (and then a request to see more which led to Ch 2)

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Melissa put a hand over her heart as she listened to the boy screaming; the doctor had just left, mentioning the anesthesiologist- it was the only way to stop his suffering until he healed. Scorpion toxin? She still couldn't believe that… She'd seen some nasty snake bites but it looked like it necrosis and that didn't happen often with scorpions as far as she'd seen. Snake bite, maybe, scorpion sting- unlikely, especially considering the lab's comment on the strength of the toxin. Plus there was the fact that none of the painkillers they were giving him were having any effect on his pain levels… There was something up about this and it made her skin crawl. Taking a deep breath, Melissa opened the door to his room and approached his bed.

"Please, make it stop!" he begged, voice hoarse from all his yelling. At this point he'd be happy if they just took his whole arm off, anything to stop the pain.

"We're bringing someone in to help, I promise," Melissa called out over his screams. She approached his bed and took his hand, despite the safety restraints keeping his wrist pinned to the bed. "Just a few more minutes and it will be better. We're doing our best to help you."

The teen closed his eyes and groaned, wanting to cry but he was too busy screaming… he just needed... something… maybe they mixed up the morphine with something else, that's why it wasn't working… it was too much!

"Just focus on me okay, I'll help you through this," she promised. Melissa continued to hold his hand in one of her own as she reached into wash bin beside his bed with her other. Expertly wringing out the cloth with one hand, she reached up and mopped the sweat off his face. "Just a little while longer, you can hold on for just a little while longer, I know you can."

"I don't want to," he panted. Why did he have to be awake right now? This was a hospital, they were supposed to be experts, they were supposed to HELP!

"We have something that will help you sleep, you'll sleep through the pain okay? We'll figure out what exactly stung you and treat it but until then you can just sleep."

"Sleep?" That sounded great right now. Sleep meant ignoring the burning in his arm, and she promised he could sleep until the pain went away. Before he could ask her anything else the door opened again and he prayed that this was the help she was talking about.

Melissa moved to the head of his bed, still moving the damp cloth over his face as the anesthesiologist approached the boy's IV line. "See, he's got some Phenobarbital for you, it will let you sleep, I promise."

"Just make it stop," He cried out again, pulling against his restraints as the pain fired through his body. He watched with teary eyes as the doctor put a needle into the IV line and injected it with something. Agonizing seconds ticked by, "It isn't working!"

"It will take a few minutes, but it will work," Melissa told him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Just a few more minutes, stay strong."

He whimpered loudly, "I can't…" He screamed again as the pain spread up his arm.

She couldn't help the tears that sprang to her eyes, no one should ever go through this kind of pain. Luckily the drugs would slow down his brain function and let his body heal, it was the only choice. She continued to whisper things to him, encouraging him to just breathe and focus on her instead of the pain. Gradually his eyes went blank and his breathing evened out; the screams of pain quieted to whimpers and eventually stopped all together. "There you go, just like I promised. Sleep now and when you wake up it will be better."

"I can't promise how long it will take for him to heal, we'll have to monitor him carefully," the doctor told her as he wrote something down on his chart.

"Of course. I just hope we figure out what did it, I've never seen an injury like this before…"

"Neither have we…" the doctor sighed. He gave one last look before heading off to check on his other patients.

Melissa stayed behind, wiping his face down before grabbing a few gauze pads and medical tape; she added a few drops to his eyes and then softly taped them shut. "Don't want your eyes drying out, jusr in case you like to look around while you sleep." It wasn't all that rare for people to go under with their eyes open during surgery and she wanted to make sure this boy didn't have issues with that on top of everything else. "I'll come check on you often alright; I'll help you get through this. Sleep now, you'll be better soon." With one final sigh, Melissa fixed his blankets around him and left the room, heart heavy.


	2. Name revealed

A/N: This chapter is the one that really has a lot of guesswork in it, I had to make up a lot of the information since we still didn't know much about Corey yet (like that he was a Chimera and that his arm healed quickly... XD but even if we did know that, if his arm healed too quickly, we wouldn't have a reason for Melissa to check on him) and I had to come up with something to write about XD I hope you enjoy it nonetheless :)

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Melissa had stayed busy in the days since they'd put the boy in the induced coma; no one had come forward with any information on him though, he still didn't have a name. Melissa came in to check on him all the time though, taking a few minutes to check on his arm and everything else. She spoke with him while she was in there too, despite the fact that half the doctors said coma patients couldn't hear or register their surroundings. Melissa was one of those that had faith her words were comforting him, in some small way, while he was asleep.

"So, it's been about 6 days and I've been the only one in here to visit you… besides the other nurses of course. Your arm is looking a lot better, hopefully we can let you wake up soon. Then you can tell us your name… I'm sure you have a family. I'd love to call them and tell them we found you, that you're okay." Melissa sighed and lightly squeezed his shoulder. "I'll be back in a few hours, stay strong."

-Next day-

It was about time to wake up the boy, Melissa hurried to finish her rounds, wanting to be there as he woke up… it might not mean much but she hoped that she was a semi familiar face. She'd have to do until they could find his parents. Finished with her rounds, she hurried down the hall and slipped into his room, sighing with relief when she saw the doctor still getting everything ready.

"Hey, is it okay that I'm here?"

The doctor smiled at her, "Yea, you've been pretty preoccupied with him. It's nice to see to the nurses here still try so hard. I know how easy it is to just lose that spark and get lost in the grind… happens to us doctors too."

Melissa nodded and moved closer to the bed, she slid her hand into the boy's; they'd removed the restraints the same day they'd put him under. It was easier to tend to him that way, and since he was going to be out for a few days, there wasn't much risk. "You ready to wake back up? I'm sure you are, probably have a list of people you want us to call."

She waited as the doctor finally started waking him up, the brain activity monitor slowly speeding up. A few minutes passed before his eyes finally flicked open, slowly registering the room. He turned his head and looked at Melissa between long blinks, eyes brightening a little when he recognized her.

"Don't try to talk yet, you still have a breathing tube, we can't take that out until you're fully awake," Melissa told him, seeing that his jaw was moving a bit.

Very sluggishly, the boy raised his free hand to his face, having a bit of trouble working the muscles; he lightly touched the mask around his mouth, suddenly aware of the strange feel of it going down his throat. He did smile when Melissa squeezed his hand, her reassurance meant a lot.

"Do you remember why you're in here?"

There was a brief moment while he thought about her question but then he nodded and raised his arm a few inches off the bed, showing her where the bandages were.

Melissa smiled, "Good. There isn't much risk of serious amnesia after waking up from an induced coma but we still like to make sure your brain is waking up just fine. Are you in any serious pain?"

He shook his head but then pointed to his throat and wrinkled his nose.

"Uncomfortable?" A nod. Melissa gave him a sympathetic smile, "Yea those are never fun, and I'm sure you're going to be a little sore once we take it out but you needed it. We should be able to take it out soon."

On the other side of the bed, the doctor nodded, "Yea, his vitals are all stable, even if he's still a little sluggish- that's normal. You were out for a few days so your muscles aren't going to respond well at first but there shouldn't be any serious signs of atrophy. Do you know your name?"

Nod.

"That's good, we were concerned since you didn't have any I.D. on you so we have no contact information," Melissa explained.

"Well before we do anything else, let's go ahead and take that breathing tube out, so that way we can communicate better."

The doctor leaned over the bed and unhooked the bag and medical tape. "Here we go, it will help if you cough, although it's almost impossible not to when removing these. Just breathe in through your nose and stay calm, it's going to feel weird."

Melissa felt his grip tighten just a bit in her hand as he nodded to the doctor. As soon as the doctor started pulling it out, he closed his eyes, not liking the feeling but he did as he was told. Soon he was coughing against his shoulder, sucking in air on his own.

"Ow," he rasped. The nurse was right, he was a little sore but, at least he could talk now.

"Here, just a few small sips," Melissa said, offering him a straw.

The boy smiled gratefully and drank some water, holding it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing, hoping to get rid of the dry feeling. After he swallowed, he looked over at Melissa, the nurse that had been there, trying to help him. "My name is Corey."

"Nice to meet you Corey, now I have a name to put to your face," she smiled.

Then their attention was back on the doctor as he explained what had happened to him in the last few days and what was to come. Corey didn't really have any questions about his health so he let the doctor go, knowing Melissa was going to stay and get some information from him. Once he gave her his home phone number, and explaining why his parents hadn't called looking for him, Melissa promised to call them.

"Before I go, I'll show you some simple exercises you can do in here by yourself, to help wake up your muscles, okay?"

"Okay."

She started with some simple arm and hand movements, showing him on one of his arms and then waiting for him to try it with his other arm. The she untucked the blanket and showed him a few for his legs.

"The easiest way to get your back and abdominal muscles feeling better is to raise the bed and sit up. You'll have the bed to support you while your muscles get used to holding your body up. Then you can try sitting forward for a little bit and then lean back onto the bed. It's okay to get tired after just a few minutes of doing these exercises though, your body takes awhile to wake up and get back into the swing of things. Once you get better at sitting up on your own, I'll be happy to wheel you around, so you can get a change of scenery," she promised.

"Thank you, for helping," Corey whispered, voice still rough.

"Will you be okay, I'm going to go call your parents now," she asked, not wanting to leave him alone if he wasn't ready yet.

He nodded though, "Yea, I'll be here, working on my muscles. Not like I'm going anywhere."

She couldn't tell by his voice but the smile that he gave her told her that he was joking instead of upset about his predicament. That was good, he had spirit- he'd be up and walking around in no time, she was sure of it!


End file.
